The shadow converged on Lazarus, and he couldn't do anything, as he got bitten by the beast and fainted. The creature smirked and said,
"Your time will come, little vampire. We'll be waiting."
It vanished and didn't leave a single trace. He fell into a deep slumber.
…
Two years later, he woke up in a start. As he opened his eyes, he realized that his senses had grown much more potent than before as he tried to exert strength on his feeble body.
Lazarus also noticed that his body had grown more significant, but he didn't pay much attention to it as the only thought in his mind was food. He had been asleep for so long he could not think of anything besides having something to eat to stuff his stomach.
He sniffed a delicious scent nearby and immediately rushed to it. A few meters away from him, there stood a pile of corpses. His mouth drooled at the sight of it.
Every time he touched a dead body, his right hand shed a red light that released a suctioning force draining the corpse's blood away. As the quantity was quite a lot, his power increased but resulted with his stomach growling once again.
Lazarus went on a hunt for more food. During his search, he encountered a demonic rabbit. The demonic rabbit was about a meter tall and looked at him with fierce eyes. It charged its body at him, but his speed was faster as he dodged to the side, throwing a punch with his small fist to the rabbit's head but missed as he hit the right side of its neck instead.
The sounds of bones breaking were noticeable, and the demonic rabbit fell, lifeless eyes replacing its formerly lively ones. He approached the corpse while looking dazedly at his hand, but soon the intense instinct of hunger came back. He couldn't help but look at the young body of the rabbit.
He quickly moved forward towards it and placed his right hand on top, allowing it to absorb the red liquid while also leaning down to taste the vivid flavor of blood. He sucked on the corpse until it was nothing but bones.
Lazarus swallowed the last mouthful of blood and felt his body get more robust, and his hunger subsided, he could now feel his consciousness clearing up as a few simple thoughts came to mind.
'Who am I, where am I, and how did I get here?'
As he was standing there lost in thought another beast had snuck up on him with giant-killing intent but before he could get close, a beam of light passed through the creature. It turned into dust.
Lazarus turned around seemingly broken out of his thoughts as he felt a sense of danger. However, when he looked behind him he saw nothing aside from the sun about to set. He subconsciously started walking towards the cave as he felt a sense of home from it and that it was the safest place in the forest.
Although he was rather young, he was smart for his age and knew he had to survive first. Lazarus knew that to survive, he needed to get much more potent. He stopped his train of thought and a glint flashed through his vermillion eyes.
He continued forward as he carefully threaded on the forest path. He felt the need to be robust and learn how to control his power as he recalled how he missed the demonic rabbit's head earlier.
On the way to the cave, he started punching at the air. There were little improvements but getting stronger won't happen overnight, and he valued his progress.
Soon, his hunger was slowly starting to return, so he decided to rest somewhere to recover his strength and start hunting for prey to satisfy his appetite. Lazarus didn't know why he thought of killing every time he felt this hunger to him but he knew that this was some kind of instinct and the thought of hunting prey made him thrilled knowing that fighting mighty beasts will make him stronger.
Lazarus went to find some prey and accidentally came across a "Sky Crimson Bear." Not wasting a single second, he shot towards the bear with lightning speed. He aimed to strike the bear on its blind spot while it was distracted. As he tried to hit the bear, the bear turned around with even faster speed as he blocked the attack with its bare body.
It felt as if he struck an iron wall and felt his hand turn numb, but the bear did not stop there as it roared aggressively and counterattacked. He tried to dodge the attacks and swung his fist in defence, but the bear was ruthless as its paw ignited an azure flame and assailed it towards Lazarus and sent him flying.
In a matter of minutes, he was already lying on the ground, coughing blood. He was enraged, proceeding to focus all of his power and managed to get up as he rushed towards the bear. aHis speed kept increasing as he charged towards it. The bear couldn't react in time and failed to follow his movements. He was moving so fast that no sound could be heard.
Lazarus kicked the Sky Crimson Bear hard, it felt pain in its back and quickly turned around but found nothing. At that moment, the bear felt intense danger at its side but it was too late as a hand that resembled a claw slashed them into pieces. It wasn't able to even let out a noise, the scene of raining blood and flesh resembling hell itself.
He was standing in the shower like a demon. It would have certainly looked charming if he was older but it looked eerie in the fading sunlight. He looked at his hand, stunned.
It was at that life and death situation that he realized his body had mysterious energy in it. If activated by will, it'll lead to this incredible change in his speed and make his hand turn into a claw similar to beasts.
He stood in shock but later felt excited. Unexpectedly, he felt a sharp pain and fell to the ground, his hand returning back to normal. He was exhausted and his hunger intensified. Luckily, there was something that could appease his craving right before his eyes.
He moved his hand with difficulty and willed it to absorb every single bit of blood from the dead bear as strength gradually returned to him. With color returning to his face, Lazarus grinned and said,
"Fighting is always exciting, you never know what may happen."
At the same time, Lazarus felt that his injuries healed at speed apparent to the naked eye. His thoughts returned to the last battle as he reviewed his actions.
He realized that he shouldn't have rushed to the bear recklessly because he didn't know how strong it was. After it was all over, he felt that he had better control over his power now. He joyfully shouted,
"This is exhilarating! Hahaha!"
He was ecstatic to find out that the strange power inside him rose to a new level and found the feeling to be intoxicating.
Lazarus stopped training for the day and started walking back towards the cave. He found his way and entered inside after a few minutes of walking.
He noticed a baby basket inside. When he had woken up before, he was starving and the hunger made him nearly enter berserk mode, so he didn't notice.
The baby basket was big and luxurious. Despite that, what really caught his eye was the shining gleam that shone under the inky embroidered blanket.